LITMIR.BIZ

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willing to do anything to start a new life on her own, away from Mrs. Schneiderman’s boardinghouse. Anything, she thought with a gulp. Even join her life to Lance Burnside’s.

      At odd hours of the night, when she tried to get comfortable in the train seat, she wondered at her audacity. But every morning when she woke up things were once again clear; she knew exactly what she wanted. Independence. She wouldn’t have done one single thing differently.

      She cast a surreptitious glance at Lance in the seat next to her, calmly eating a sandwich. He was a good man. At least she hoped he was. When she took the time to look at him, really look at him, she had to admit he was quite attractive with dark, slightly wavy hair that usually flopped into his eyes. And those eyes were such a dark, smoky blue they looked like ripe blueberries. Sometimes the expression in them gave her pause.

      She knew he was not really a thief, no matter what any Wanted poster said. The sheriff in St. Louis said Wells Fargo was always printing up such posters. Every time they lost someone’s luggage they claimed it was a robbery.

      But what else Lance Burnside was she hadn’t a clue. One thing she knew for certain; he was as anxious to leave Mrs. Schneiderman’s and St. Louis as she was. “I have no future here,” he admitted. “Might as well gamble that Oregon will be better.”

      And, Marianne thought with a stab of conscience, he was gambling that marrying her would not turn out to be a disaster. They were both gambling. They might not like Oregon. They might discover Uncle Matty’s business was something awful, like laying railroad track or running a slaughterhouse. Worse, after they were married, they might find they didn’t really like each other, at least not in the married sense. She already liked what she knew of Lance, she acknowledged. But maybe that wouldn’t be enough.

      He leaned toward her. “You want half my sandwich? It’s meat loaf.” He waved it beneath her nose. He had purchased it somewhere in Idaho, and while her stomach rumbled with hunger, and the smell of meat and mayonnaise was enticing, she knew she couldn’t eat a bite.

      “No, thank you, Lance. I’m too nervous to eat anything.”

      “Nervous about what?”

      “About what Uncle Matty’s business will turn out to be. Maybe it’s a house full of shady ladies or a coal mine or a rowdy saloon.”

      And she was extremely apprehensive about marrying Lance, but she need not mention that.

      He stretched out his long legs and bit into his sandwich. She glanced at his squashed-up-looking lunch and wrinkled her nose.

      “Still not hungry?”

      She sighed. “My stomach is too jumpy. Besides, we’ve eaten nothing but sandwiches for the past three days.”

      “I’m tired of sandwiches, too,” he said. “Eat it anyway.”

      At that moment her stomach gurgled, and when he grinned at her she reluctantly accepted it. “Thank you, Lance.”

      His eyes widened. “You’re welcome.” He bit into his half and chewed quietly while she studied the gray-looking bread in her hand. “Never in all my years at Mrs. Schneiderman’s have I seen a sorrier-looking sandwich.”

      Lance nodded and took another bite. Things sure did seem unreal. He could understand Marianne’s feelings of anxiety. The last thing he ever thought he’d do in life was get married. A man on the run, a member of the notorious Sackler gang robbing stagecoaches, had no time to think about marriage, let alone court a woman. And the last woman he’d ever think of marrying would be Marianne Collingwood. Marianne acted more like a drill sergeant than a flesh and blood woman, and that was on her good days!

      But the prospect of starting a new life two thousand miles away from St. Louis and an incriminating Wells Fargo poster was worth a gamble.

      Maybe they didn’t like each other much. He didn’t want to marry her any more than she truly wanted to marry him, but she had that Wanted poster folded up in her reticule, so he figured she had him over a barrel.

      After his mother died, he’d run away from Pa and joined the gang when he was just fourteen, too young to know what he was doing. But the only time he’d really done anything for them, acting as a lookout, had dictated his life from then on because his face had appeared on that poster. He’d done nothing else in his life but sweat over being found out.

      Maybe the chance to get away from St. Louis and make something of himself would be worth it. And getting married looked like the price of admission. Well, so be it.

      He gave her a sidelong look. “We’ll be pulling into Smoke River sometime today. What’s the first thing we should do when we get there?”

      She groaned. “After three days and nights on this train, all I want to do is take a long, hot bath and sleep for twenty-four hours. After that, I want to visit the mercantile and find a dressmaker.”

      “What for?” He gave her green traveling outfit a quick once-over. “You look okay to me.”

      Inexplicably, her cheeks turned pink. “Um, well, a woman only gets married once in her life. I want to have a real wedding dress.”

      A real wedding dress, huh? He wondered if she’d thought through all the ramifications of getting married, spending all day in each other’s company. And all night. He felt his face heat up. Actually, he admitted, it was more than just his face that felt hot.

      He took a long look at the woman beside him, now gazing out the train window at a herd of grazing horses. Everything in life was a gamble, he figured; but this was sure one of the biggest.

      On the other hand, he pondered, finally feeling his face cool down somewhat, maybe getting married to Marianne wouldn’t be so bad.

      Maybe.

       Chapter Four

      With a puff of billowy white steam the locomotive engine chugged past the Smoke River station house, and the single passenger car gradually rolled to a stop. The uniformed conductor clunked down an iron step, and the first person to descend was Marianne Collingwood. She set one foot on the wooden platform, then two, and immediately spun in a circle to take in the view of her new home.

      “Green,” she murmured. “Everything is so green. And the trees are so tall.” She had never seen such towers of pine and sugar maple. And the smell! She inhaled deeply and shut her eyes. The air smelled like Christmas trees!

      Behind her, two elderly women in matching navy blue travel suits stepped down, followed by a tall man with a tan, weathered face wearing a wide-brimmed gray hat. A shiny silver badge was pinned to his leather vest. Only when the sheriff strode off down the street toward town did Lance step off the train, and Marianne noticed he had tipped his black felt hat down to hide his face.

      “For heaven’s sake,” she whispered, “no sheriff out here in this wilderness will be the slightest bit interested in you.”

      “Yeah, how do you know that?”

      “Because I’ve been reading the newspapers. With all the murders and barroom brawls law officers in the West have to keep up with, a five-year-old robbery back in Missouri isn’t important. You are perfectly safe.”

      “Speak for yourself,” he grumbled. “I feel like there’s a big sign around my neck with thief printed in big black letters.”

      She drew in a tired breath of the hot afternoon air and turned toward him. “Lance, go inside and arrange for my trunk to be delivered.”

      He dropped both their travel bags at her feet, propped one hand on his hip and sent her a reproving look. “Marianne,” he said firmly, “it’s not too late for you to learn how to say ‘please.’”

      Out of habit she opened her mouth to berate him, but after a moment she gave a quick nod. “Oh, all right, ‘please.’”

      He

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